Joseph Borg writes about how his passion and work on blood research led him to explore how he could access space for his own research. Project Maleth, Malta’s first space bioscience programme was born in late 2020. You can catch Dr Borg on November 18 at the AIBC conference taking place at the Hilton, St Julian’s.

Where to begin. I was always passionate about science, laboratory science to be precise. The idea of being able to extract DNA from living cells and analyse their genetic code thrilled me and allowed me to get closer to what makes life tick. I am a person who values life greatly as we know it, and all the intricate details that make up molecular pathways and genetic switches leave me in awe and with a quench to learn more.

After reading for my undergraduate degree in Applied Biomedical Science, I followed a natural route leading me to read both for an MSc degree and a doctoral degree, both at the University of Malta. My area of interest is on blood disorders, inherited genetic rare disorders of blood, and red blood cell development. I have been in this field for the last 12 years culminating in my full professorship granted by our University of Malta. During this time I had the privilege of being both a student learning from my mentors (Professor Alex Felice from Malta, Professor Sjaak Philipsen from The Netherlands, and others) whilst also acting as a mentor to young and early stage researchers wanting to learn some of the secrets that leads to the science of life.

An incredible moment during my PhD and later years was my discovery of a novel DNA mutation in the human KLF1 gene that led to abnormally high levels of foetal haemoglobin - an oxygen carrier protein normally found at higher levels only in foetus. This discovery paved the way for greater and more in depth research to understand better how red blood cells behave inside the human body, how they contain varying levels of human haemoglobin and how it’s produced. The findings have added a further piece of the intricate puzzle that may lead to therapeutics for beta thalassaemia and sickle cell disease.

We are living in one of the most exciting, yet realistically turbulent periods of human life

My passion and work on blood research led me to read about novel ways on how to study human health science and cell biology and development. A select number of scientific publications focusing on space bioscience including NASA identical twin study – Mark and Scott Kelly - using advanced DNA and genetic tools enticed me to explore how I too can access space for my own research. Project Maleth was born in late 2020. After securing public, private and government support to do the first launch in the summer of 2021 – Maleth’s first mission and hence Malta’s first ever biological entry to space, was carried out. The Maleth programme consists of a series of biomedical science experiments focusing on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and diabetic foot ulcers. The study forms part of my PhD students’ work at the University of Malta – Christine Gatt – mentored by Dr Graziella Zahra and myself. Christine is a hardworking biomedical laboratory scientist whose role is to detect bacterial and other infectious agents in human tissues at the bacteriology laboratory of our national state hospital. Using her skills and work practice, she now monitors the growth and studies using advanced molecular tools the microorganisms of diabetic foot ulcers that have been sent to the International Space Station. These organisms collectively known as a microbiome, departed earth aboard a SpaceX dragon spacecraft on top of a Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the US. We have already sent our second follow up mission to space and back and now aim to send the third and final mission using transcontinental human skin tissue samples from another country in the Middle East. This will make comparative genomic analysis easier and more robust to observe meaningful differences between earth and space.

Joseph Borg

Why space? The niche micro-environment of space consists of microgravity, a higher solar radiation than on earth and a stressful environment that keeps cells / life in a constant state of adaptive mode to survive. These combinations tease out those important biomarkers or genes that are responsible for allowing bacteria to thrive more, and resist stressful conditions. These can then be faithfully compared to the same microorganisms here on earth and determine whether any changes observed at the genetic level were due to chance or otherwise. I’m super elated as you are reading this article, that the scientific data from Maleth I, the programmes’ first mission to space, have been successfully accepted for publication in Heliyon – a Cell Press publication. This published work sits alongside other three publications co-authored by me in Cell Press, all related to space bioscience research.

We are living in one of the most exciting, yet realistically turbulent periods of human life. The pandemic era, coupled with global conflict and warfare, are unavoidable evil that intentionally slows down progress from doing basic and fundamental research such as this. It is also true however, that at times like these, innovative ideas and research problems are asked and addressed. Many times using unconventional ways on how to approach them or build tools to solve them. Malta is on the right path in the context of taking space science and research more seriously in the coming years.

Thanks to an initiative spearheaded by the Parliamentary Secretary for Youths, Research and Innovation Hon. Keith Azzopardi Tanti, an entire space act for Malta is in the works and expected to be completed by next year. This will be in time for a big international conference planned to take place at the end of next year hosting various key scientists from different space agencies, possibly also in the presence of astronauts speaking of their own experiences and out of world research.

To the young and aspiring scientists reading this article – have courage, the future is not all doom and gloom. If you don’t do anything about it yourself, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not,” as Dr Seuss wrote.